ether would ye like to go play on the beach, lad, or stop here and
hold the blottin'-paper while we write a letter?"

Billy elected to hold the blotting-paper and watch proceedings, being
curious to know what the letter was to be about.

When all was ready--the table cleared of everything except what
pertained to the literary work then in hand--Stephen Gaff sat down at
one end of the table; his wife drew her chair to the other end; Tottie,
feeling very proud and rather nervous, sat between them, with a new
quill in her hand, and a spotless sheet of foolscap before her. The
Bu'ster stood by with the blot-sheet, looking eager, as if he rather
wished for blots, and was prepared to swab them up without delay.

"Are ye ready, Tot?" asked Gaff.

"Yes, quite," answered the child.

"Then," said Gaff; with the air of a general officer who gives the word
for the commencement of a great fight, "begin, an' fire away."

"But what am I to say, daddy?"

"Ah, to be sure, you'd better begin, Tottie," said Gaff, evidently in
perplexity; "you'd better begin as they teach you to at the school,
where you've larnt to write so butiful."

Here Mrs Gaff advised, rather abruptly, that she had better write,
"this comes hoping you're well;" but her husband objected, on the ground
that the words were untrue, inasmuch as he did not care a straw whether
the person to be written to was well or ill.

"Is't to a man or a 'ooman we're a-writin', daddie?" inquired the
youthful scribe.

"It's a gentleman."

"Then we'd better begin `dear sir,' don't you think?"

"But he an't dear to me," said Gaff.

"No more is he to me," observed his wife.

"Make it `sir,' plain `sir' means nothin' in partickler, I b'lieve,"
said Gaff with animation, "so we'll begin it with plain `sir.' Now,
then, fire away, Tottie."

"Very well," said Tottie, dipping her pen in the ink-bottle, which was a
stone one, and had been borrowed from a neighbour who was supposed to
have literary tendencies in consequence of his keeping such an article
in his cottage. Squaring her elbows, and putting her head _very_ much
on one side, to the admiration of her parents, she prepared to write.

The Bu'ster clutched the blotting-paper, and looked on eagerly, not to
say hopefully.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tottie, "it's _red_ ink; see."

She held up the pen to view, and no one could deny the fact, not even
Billy, who, feeling that he had repressed his natural flow of spirits
rather long